The End is Nigh

I have a substantial post sitting in my drafts that I was planning to put up today, but it's a tad rambly, and sporadically on topic, so here's something (hopefully) a little more concise.

GET THE TORIES OUT!

Don't be fooled; Brexit is an element of this election, without question, but it is neither the most pressing concern, nor the reason this all happened in the first place.  Theresa May wants unfettered control, saw an opportunity to get rid of Labour once and for all, and took it.

And in her arrogance, she's barely been coy about what will come as a result of a Tory win tomorrow: the NHS will continue to stagnate and crumble, until it can be sold off at a pittance; police cuts will continue to put all of our lives at risk - something she now plans to offset, not by putting more bobbies on the beat, but stripping away our human rights!

The burden of austerity will continue to be heaped upon those who can't bare it, while the best off in this country will continue to reap the rewards.

No, Theresa, there are not 'any number of reasons' why nurses use food-banks.  Nurses use food-banks because they can't afford food!

Nurses!

Where once, paid-for care in your old age would leave you with at least your final £23,000 of savings - not including your house - the cap will be raised to £100,000, including your house.  In other words, if your house is worth more than £100,000, you'll be left with nothing but a roof over your head by the time your care's paid for, and that roof then goes to the government once you croak.

Free, healthy lunches will be taken from infants, and replaced (in part) with 7p breakfasts.

If the Brexit negotiations don't go her way (and given the rag-tag team of Brexiteers she's put together to handle the negotiations, they won't), then she's promised to just 'walk away'.

"No deal is better than a bad deal."

Bullshit.  The only thing worse than a bad deal, is no deal.

'Strong and stable'?  She's a coward!  While Corbyn was facing down six of his opponents (well, five and a sub), she was in a factory with (pre-vetted) Joe Public, while a woman who'd lost her father that week got laughed at in her stead.

"I've debated him every week at PMQs."

No you haven't.  You've avoided every question he's ever asked, instead spouting soundbites and taking swipes at New Labour, who haven't been in power for almost a decade, and haven't existed (outside of a few misguided and failed rebellions) since Corbyn took over.

And regardless of what happens, she'll be bending us all over in front of Trump (assuming he's still there by the end of the week) in a desperate bid to secure at least one trade deal that isn't too much worse than the one we have already.

"But never mind all that: the Sun, Mail and Express are all running (long ago disproved) headlines about Corbyn being a terrorist sympathiser, and coming from them it must be true...!"

I'm not saying everyone should vote Labour tomorrow, but if they've got the best chance of beating the Tory in your constituancy, then do!  If it's the Lib Dems, vote Lib Dem.  SNP.  Greens.  Whoever it is who will take a seat from May!

Because that's what's important this election: putting an end to this regime, that started with Cameron, and has descended into deepening despair with May.  She claims this election was about a stronger footing at the negotiating table, and if the Tories are down just one seat when the count is done, she will, by her own measure, have weakened the country for the sake of her ego.

Just one seat, and the weak, wobbly, detrimental, arrogant, egotistical, homophobic, greedy, self-righteous...person (fought so hard against typing something else), will be out come the end of the Brexit negotiations, if not sooner.

...

That was considerably longer and ramblier than I intended... Sorry.

Coalition of Common Sense

One of the Tories' myriad stock phrases on the General Election campaign trail has been a warning against a 'coalition of chaos' arising should they not win a significant majority.

With the Greens' Caroline Lucas urging candidates not to stand against the best anti-Tory hopes, Vince Cable suggesting similar, and Labour activists backing a non-Labour rival to Jeremy C- um, Hunt, there certainly seems to be a lot of cross-party cooperation on the cards.

But is this a bad thing?

Tim Farron and Jeremy Corbyn certainly want us to think they're against it; with one seaming to believe they can take the mantel as the new opposition, and the other suggesting they can actually win this election.

The thing is, unless your name's Donald Trump, delusion does not win elections.  When it comes to a three party race (which is currently the best the Lib Dems can hope for (sorry Tim)), the Conservatives have this in the bag.  Their blinkered, bludgeoning, bungling approach to Brexit, demolition of the NHS, disenfranchisement of the poor and needy, and bending over forwards to please the world's rich and unbalanced is apparently nothing next to how un-Prime Ministerial Corbyn and Farron appear in the eyes of the electorate.

Partisanship is not going to unseat the Tories, or grant any one opposition party a significant voice.  In the current climate, it is vital to have all parties working together.

And not only in opposition to a Tory party fumbling in the dark since Cameron's unceremonious departure, but with the Tories when it comes to negotiating our way out of the EU.

Unfortunately, the Lib Dems can promise a second referendum all they want; it isn't going to happen.  But by the same merit, nor will a Tory majority grant Theresa May a 'strong and stable' hand in the negotiating process.  Brexit was and is a divisive issue, and the backing of one third of whatever percentage of the electorate bothers to vote does not mean you have the support of the nation.  The EU knows this, and will demolish a May-led negotiation if it relies on 'a Tory majority' as a sign of national unity and strength.

The EU cannot, and will not, allow abandoning the union to be a positive move.  And one party - regardless of its perceived mandate from whatever narrow portion of the nation supports them (as is the best any party can achieve under our current electoral system) - cannot stand up to 27 unified nations with a unified goal.

Only a coalition of all parties, representing all areas of the UK, will give us any kind of strength during negotiations.  The only way to force May to accept this is to reduce her majority, and our best hope for doing that is for all opposition parties to work together.

Feverishly Elective: The Feckoning

Well, here we go again.

After spending the best part of a year assuring the Great British public that now was not the right time for an election - that the nation had to come together behind Brexit, rather than be pulled apart by another vote - Theresa may has called for another vote.

*sigh*

I'm still running the ins and outs of this through my head, and struggling to find where I stand on it, but I'm currently leaning slightly towards the positive.

Let's start with what will happen on the 8th of June: the Tories will win, May will (erroneously) claim a mandate from the people, and Jeremy Corbyn will be out of a job.  All of which, of course, is why she's done it.

While I started out with a (relatively) high opinion of Corbyn, that has flagged of late.  It's a rare thing to find a principled politician these days, and rarer still to find one who'll stick to those principles, but that's not enough.  Shallow as it may sound, a leader must have some presence; some charisma.  They must be able to convince others of their way of thinking, and that's not Jeremy Corbyn.

That said, it would have helped to have had his MPs show him even a modicum of backing, rather than plotting against him from the moment their own supporters gave him the position.  While Corbyn may not be a great leader, responsibility for the current state of the party rests firmly with those MPs who'd rather cling to D:reams of the glory days of the late 90s, than deal with the present, and acknowledge a need to move on.

I don't believe Corbyn could have ever won an election, but had his MPs not been so focused on castrating their own party, they may have at least closed the gap on May and the Tories.

That said, the Conservative Party's footing isn't nearly as stable as May thinks it is.  Yes, they've comfortably won a couple of local elections recently, but those were in constituencies that voted heavily for Brexit, and are no doubt enamoured by her all-or-nothing approach (as self-destructive as that is).  National opinion, however, has shifted somewhat since the referendum, with people becoming aware of what Brexit actually means, and the impact it is having and will have.

Not only is the pound clinging desperately to the u-bend, having been dropped in the crapper by the result, but our desperate need for trade-deals will keep it there until it can either clamber up the huge pile of excrement we're finally able to negotiate, or it's flushed into the sewer with nothing but America's meagre droppings to sustain it.

Speaking of the good ol' US of Aw crap, what's he's done now?!, that particular 'special relationship' is also likely to cause May an issue or two on the campaign trail.  Fearing our being cast adrift from the EU and its myriad trading partners, dear Theresa has taken every opportunity since November to plant her tongue firmly in the wigged tangerine's rectum in a display of such hurl-inducing fawning, even George W's prize poodle Blair looks restrained by comparison.

Add to that a crumbling NHS, a widely criticised obsession with Grammar Schools, repeated attacks on the poor and disabled, and telling the Scots that she knows better than them what they want, and any illusions of a free ride look increasingly delusional.

Unfortunately, the party and its leader's demonstrable ineptitude doesn't change the fact there's currently no one to challenge them.  Aside from Labour's obsession with marrying bullets to feet, the Lib Dems are still rebuilding after giving David Cameron carte blanche with a sledgehammer to their foundations, UKIP have achieved what they set out to achieve, and are now struggling to convince anyone they're still relevant, the Greens are enjoying 1980s levels of popularity, and despite being, for all intents and purposes, the Tories' only functioning opposition, geographical restrictions mean there's only so much the SNP can do.

So what's the point of even voting?

The point is that is exactly the question May wants us all asking.  If we're too busy lamenting the lack of a viable opposition to bother voting for any of them, then that will become the reality.  That's not to say everyone should vote Labour just for the sake of it, because that's the flip side of the same problem: if they don't like one, they vote for the other, and regardless of which wins, we're left with a self-indulgent ruling party, and a self-destructive opposition.

The problem with our political system isn't the number of supporters for one or the other, but the number of people who support neither, but see only the two options.

If everyone voted, and everyone voted based on policies, rather than old ideologies or attempting to back a winner, then we'd see a significant shake-up of the political landscape.  And while that might not solve any of our problems, it will at least put us on a path to solving them by showing all parties that if they're not good enough, we'll vote for someone else.

That might seem obvious, but the Tories have gutted our industry, crippled our NHS, demolished our education system, disenfranchised the poor and needy, are jumping into bed with a schizophrenic nuclear-weaponised five year-old engaged in a pissing context with a schizophrenic nuclear-weaponised ten year-old, all-but destroyed our economy and only ever help those who can already comfortably help themselves, and they're set to win a third general election!

May might get everything she thinks she wants out of this election, but that doesn't mean we can't lessen her standing, and make this a challenging few years.  Then we can finally look forward to a decent fight in 2022.

We just have to take the opportunity.